All posts tagged ‘boardgames’

Looking for that perfect gaming accessory to go with your countless geeky t-shirts? Maybe you’ve made the leap and gotten some game related ink but you don’t have any awesome earrings to match? What you need is some jewelry made with board game components.

The Hard Boiled Megg shop on Etsy is selling some awesome looking board game inspired jewelry perfect for filling out your gamer look. Megan Raley, a professional crafts instructor and jewelry maker, has teamed up with her husband, Daniel Solis, a game designer featured on GeekDad for his Writer’s Dice project and the fabulous Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple roleplaying game. Both are avid board gamers and Megan has a particular fondness for Carcassonne, which explains the meeple-centric design of these earrings and necklaces.

Everything in the store ranges between $16-$30. You can get a pair of earrings, a necklace, or a set of both, with either gold, silver, or copper hardware. Megan is currently working on more masculine offerings (I want some cufflinks!), which should be up on the store soon. Check out this fun YouTube video for more info on the process of creating the pieces.

You’ve got to hand it to librarians: they have got their stuff together. Some of the most tech-savvy people I engage with on Twitter are librarians and they know that learning and literacy are so much more than books. GeekDad readers are well aware that libraries are places that not only foster learning, but have long harbored all kinds of geeky habits and interests. So, it will be no surprise that the American Library Association is building on previous success and will have over 1800 locations and tens of thousands of people playing board games and role-playing games this Saturday, November 13.

National Gaming Day at your library promises games of all types. Libraries will offer a variety of activities throughout the day, including modern board games, traditional games (such as chess and checkers) and two national video game tournaments that will pit players at dozens of libraries against each other for bragging rights to the ultimate Rock Band and Super Smash Bros. Brawl crowns.

The success of the national day has now crossed borders with libraries all over the world signing up to be a part of the event which is not just about playing games, but focusing on how games bring people together and libraries as a social and community hub. Some libraries in France, Portugal, Canada and Argentina will also be participating.

My family have slowly been converting to board games from video games over the last few months. We really enjoy the more interactive and tactile nature of the physical board and piece, and we seem to talk more as we play as well.

We had played Carcassonne before, but the recent Traders and Builders set (provided by IGUK for review) got us reinvigorated for tactical world domination. Here’s a review we wrote together for our board game blog.

Carcassonne Traders and Builders lightly tweaks the balanced board game action of the basic game. A little complexity and a few new tactics arise as new options for attack and defense are realized.

Type of Game

Traders and Builders is an expansion for Carcassonne, a tile-based strategy board game for two to five players. Game play revolves around laying tiles and wooden people, a process whereby each player can only place there tile next to others with matching sides to slowly build fields, towns and roads.

The strategic element in Carcassonne is deciding where to lay your tiles – to help yourself or hinder opponents – as well as when and where to place your wooden men to score points. There is a balance between scoring points immediately and placing people to try and score points at the end of the game. Continue Reading “Traders Pack Reinvigorates Carcassonne” »

Fantasy Flight Games have taken the age old family favourite of tiddlywinks to a whole new level with their family boardgame Micro Mutants Evolution. With a little bit of skill, a healthy dose of luck and and a pinch of strategy, you can lead your bug army to victory.

Micro Mutants Evolution plays out with you and your opponent(s) taking turns to flick your bug counters, tiddlywinks style towards your opponents bugs and their base, with the ultimate goal of the game being to destroy your opponent’s bases before he can destroy yours. Bugs often have special abilities detailed on accompanying cards that allow them extra moves or attacks. Included in the game are 4 complete bug armies, their associated tokens and cards and game pieces, and a large fabric play mat for conducting your battles on.

photo: Greig Chisholm

The four bug armies included in the game are stylistically different and have a range of special abilities giving good variety in play whichever you choose. They are the Usarthropods, bedecked in stars and stripes, the borg-like Flyborgs, the soviet styled Sovietopters and the Chitinians, rebellious slaves from the Flyborg Empire.

The rules run to an extremely generously illustrated fifteen pages, but don’t let that put you off. You can get started on the basic game after only three pages and reference to a few pictures. The game requires a small amount of skill. It is all too easy to flick the bugs too hard and send them flying from the play mat. Equally it is easy to do the opposite and barely move your bug. This could get frustrating for younger players unable to quickly adapt to the dexterity required to play the game successfully.

The game can be played with 2-4 people and takes 30-60 minutes. You would think that with four people the game would be more fun as there would be more targets to aim at and random flicking would be more likely to yield a hit. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case when we played the four player game. The likelihood of a successful attack didn’t seem to increase significantly, and the main impact of the four player game was much longer between successive turns. The sweet-spot for this game is definitely two players.

The game is recommended for ages 10 and above, though our 6 year old son had no trouble understanding the rules. There is a bit of reading involved to understand the special powers that are available to some of the bugs, but there is no benefit in these being kept secret and so I was able to help my son understand the special moves and powers available to him without biasing the game in my favour.

The nature of the game means that a slightly springy surface is needed to get the pieces to fly through the air. We originally started playing on the dining room table, but had no luck in getting the bugs airborne. We decanted to the living room carpet and had a lot more success.

If you are looking for a fairly unique game this holiday season, then you could do a lot worse than Micro Mutants.

Wired: Game play is quite involving and the element of skill makes it feel like you are influencing proceedings more than with a purely dice based game.

Tired: Playing with more than two players drags on a little. Crawling around on the carpet can be tough on the old knees after a while.

Caylus: Magna Carta. The original box on the left, my new compact box on the right.

One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to board games is the size of the boxes. Wouldn’t it be a great world where everything came in the minimum amount of packaging necessary to protect it? (For one, we could get rid of a whole lot of those injury-causing clamshell packages.) Now, maybe you’re thinking: what’s the big deal? It’s just a box! You must be one of those liberal treehuggers, right?

Well, okay, maybe you’ve got me on the treehugger thing. But my bigger reason for wanting smaller boxes is very practical: I’m running out of room. My collection is currently up to somewhere around 140 games, and my Tetris-inspired organizational skills can only get me so far. What I’d really appreciate is smaller boxes. Continue Reading “A Gamer’s Pet Peeve: Big Box, Small Game” »

A couple of weeks ago we took our annual family vacation. This consisted of the family, the extended family, a condo in Perdido Key, Florida, and no gadgets for amusement. No Xbox 360, no laptop, not a single luxury; like Robinson Crusoe, as primitive as can be. But hey, it’s the beach! We did pack some board game fun to take on the trip, so here is what I discovered playing these new games with my kids and my in-laws.

Cloud 9
What goes up, must come down!

CLOUD 9® will take you straight up through the clouds! The higher the balloon rises, the more points you can score. But watch out, the balloon can fall at anytime… how long are you willing to stay on and risk losing it all?

Reach new heights with CLOUD 9!

We had a great time playing this colorful game. My kindergarten age son is just getting into numbers, so this was a good learning experience also. The game is based on levels of risk versus reward. Of course being five, he played with zero fear of risk so the games went fairly quick. Remember that tip if you tell the kids they can have one quick game before bed. The box states designed for ages eight and up, but I think six could handle it. Also you do need three people to play.

Players race to identify a drawing done by the “artist”— but the artist doesn’t know what he or she is drawing! It’s up to the “director” to tell the artist how to draw the picture without giving away the name of the item shown on the picture card.

The laughter builds as the artist attempts to follow directions and everyone tries to identify the drawing. With Backseat Drawing Junior everyone can play and the fun never stops!

1. The director looks at the Picture Card and tells the artist what to draw.
2. The artist uses the drawing board to draw the picture.
3. Everybody tries to guess what the picture might be.

This game proved to be the trip’s saving grace. When it comes down to trying to draw an object from someone else’s description, the playing field is level between kids and adults. Imagine trying to tell someone how to draw a truck, but you cannot say “draw a truck.”

Our first match went like this (by the way, it was a truck):

“Draw a circle, now draw another circle by that one, now draw a box on top, now draw another box in that one.”

” I know what this is!”

“What is it?”

“Toast and pancakes!”

Another great tip: The dry erase boards that the game comes with and the matching markers and erasers are fun for the kids even when you are not gaming. We would give them those and a couple of the cards and ask them to draw the picture from the card. All the objects are comprised of basic shapes and are easy to draw. Great fun on a rainy day.

Both games are from the company Out of the Box Publishing and are available to purchase from their site as well as fine bookstores everywhere. Above photos and descriptions are from Out of the Box Publishing.

How about playing Monopoly using the street you live on? Or where you work?

That’s the concept behind the upcoming Monopoly City Streets. It’s limited-time online version of Monopoly that allows players to buy, build up and trade streets based on Google Maps, competing against participants all over the world in real time.

The PR department of Hasbro gave me access to a sneakpeek version of the game.

I decided to start with where I work. I purchased State Street and plunked down an office building where my office exists. Easy enough. Unfortunately, the game indicated it was “State Street, Medford, MA”, instead of “State Street, Boston, MA,” even though my fancy new virtual “Modern Tower Block” was sitting right next to Faneuil Hall on the map.

I continued on my quest to buy streets and build buildings throughout downtown Boston. Every so often, a card would pop up on the screen allowing a special event. I got to bulldoze someone’s building, build a prison on someone’s street and build a park on one of my properties.

Eventually, I ran out of money. Then I realized that I hadn’t read the rules and didn’t even know the goal of the game. I assumed it would be like Monopoly and I would need as much property and money as I could get.

Here is a snapshot of the rules:

Log in

Randomly receive a new Chance Card

Buy any street that isn’t locked

Build for rent

Negotiate for streets

Sell a street you own

Frankly, the rules don’t help much. It’s not much of a game and the play is not particularly interesting. Although, it’s kind of cool to own part of downtown Boston.

The message with the sneak peek said I should start with New York. So it’s my own fault for ignoring those instructions. With no cash, I zoomed the map over to New York City and saw that there was more action happening there. The next day I had more cash in the bank (I’m not sure how that happens) so I bought the street and constructed a building where the GM Building exists.

It’s hard to tell what the game will be like when more people start using it. Maybe they will make some changes before it launches on September 9th.

The online game will last for four months. It’s being launched in connection with the new Monopoly City Edition. This is a new take on the classic game.

Playing war games with your kids is an excellent way to build bonds with them. The back and forth pull of the action, seeing strategies work perfectly or fail miserably and the final grind down struggle of the last man standing will create stories and memories you will both share. If though, like me you have had some trouble finding the right game to interest your kids in, I would like to suggest Memoir ’44 by Days of Wonder.

War games are a big part of my life. I started playing chit and hex WWII games with my older brother when I was 10. Playing a single game of Afrika Korps or Panzer was an all day affair. Even though Axis & Allies had been out for a while, it was out of our price range and I didn’t play my first game until 5 years later.

The difference was incredible. Instead of chits there were real plastic men. Setup took a few minutes instead of hours. The game itself could be played in a single afternoon and put away without having to fight with mom over clearing out of the dining room for dinner. I have played chit and hex games since but A&A dominated my war gaming life for several years.

Memoir ’44 is to Axis & Allies as A&A is to D-Day, Panzer and any other of the classic war games. Memoir ’44 is recommended for players 8 and older – it was created with introducing kids to the hobby in mind. Setup and cleanup are quick, the rules are simple and the average game takes only 30-60 minutes to play.

The box includes a 2-sided large hex map, plastic figures for both Axis and Ally forces, combat cards, combat dice, terrain tiles and special markers for units. There is no construction required except for punching out the cardboard pieces, and the included tray makes storage of everything very clean and easy to use. The included rule book has two parts: how to play and scenarios.

The rules can be read in about 10 minutes. The game is set in Europe during the summer of 1944. Scenarios walk you through various battles within the European theater. Each scenario builds upon the previous by adding incremental elements to the battle. For example, the first scenario is infantry only, the second adds tanks and then artillery and so on. Each scenario takes about 30 minutes to complete. During a normal game session you play once then switch sides and play again.

The mechanics of the game are very simple. Once everything is set up each player takes turns giving orders to their units for movement and engaging in combat. The game board is divided into three sections. On your turn you play a command card which specifies the section where units can be given orders and how many of each can be activated. For example, the command card could say 2-Left, which means that 2 units may be given move and attack orders in the left section of the board.

Combat is resolved by rolling special combat dice. These are six sided dice and have symbols for the various types of units in the game. If the symbol rolled matches the unit attacked or a grenade comes up, that equals one kill. Each unit consists of 3-4 men and when the last one dies, the opposing player gains a medal. The game is played until one of the players reaches a number of medals specified in the scenario, usually between 4 and 6.

Simplicity, quick game play and fun scenarios all add to making this a great game. For the last couple of years I have been trying to get my son interested in war gaming. I introduced him to several games including Axis & Allies, Battletech and Warmachine. In each of those games his video-game-focused mind lost interest after the first 45 minutes of play. I knew I lost him when his eyes would glaze over as I told him about dice combinations and hit location charts. Memoir ’44 has none of these intricacies. Not only did my son pick up the rules on the first play, he is the one coming to me asking to play the game, which is a big win in my book.

Teaching him strategy is a challenge, and I would like to hear your suggestions. Explaining why I am making particular moves gets him impatient and wanting me to hurry up to his turn. Asking him to explain why he is choosing to do things doesn’t work either. In the last game I gave him hints of where and how to hit me, which helped, but my goal is for him to develop the critical thinking skills to win on his own, so I wonder about giving him too much help. I don’t think using tough love and beating him until he figures it out on his own will work.

Overall playing any game with your kids is a fun and rewarding experience. My goal with war gaming is to share with my kids the fun I had playing against my brothers and friends when I was younger, and continue to do at tournaments and conventions now. War games teach critical thinking and strategy, exercise math and reading skills and provide an opportunity to learn about some of the most important times in our history.

Much as I love boardgames and love sharing them with my family, I’ll happily confess that in many cases they are too complex for family consumption, so I’m always interested to see an old classic remade in a more kid-friendly flavour.

Rio Grande Games is releasing a version of Carcassonne for kids, cunningly called Kids of Carcassonne (possibly following the same trend as Settlers of Catan versus Kids of Catan). For those of you not familiar with the concept of Carcassonne, it is a game where you gradually build up a medieval style map by laying tiles with various terrain features on them. You score points by completing these terrain features. The terrain includes towns, farms, roads and monasteries. The trick is that you can’t score points for completing a feature without having claimed the developing feature by placing a little wooden marker, known as a Meeple on the tile. Your supply of Meeples is limited, though you get them back when a feature is completed.

The kids’ version simplifies the process by using only road tiles so that they will always match. Each tile has pictures of children on it portrayed in different colors corresponding to the colours of the Meeples chosen by the players at the start of the game. When a road is completed, you place your Meeples on the tiles which have your color in them. The winner is the first player to get rid of all their Meeples.

It will be interesting to see what the kids version adds to the experience as we have been able to get by with the “grown-up” version with a couple of modifications. Originally when my kids were a little younger (five and eight) we played a stripped down version without the Meeples. You simply score points for being the first to complete one of the terrain features. Now that the kids are a couple of years older, we have graduated to nearly the full game. We play with all the rules except farms and as anybody who has played Carcassonne can attest to, the farm scoring is evil and best left well alone! Of course making maps of imaginary places is always fun and we have also been known to forget the game altogether and just make up maps using the tile pieces.

I’ll try and pick up a copy of Kids of Carcassonne over the next few weeks and post a full review after we have played a few games.

The world of gaming produces many strange practices and whilst I would never admit to sleeping with my dice under my pillow to “charge” them – not for many years anyway, there are certainly a few tics, habits, routines or obsessions that I participate in and which my fellow gamers also seem to fall prey to.Whilst I wouldn’t want to rubbish my native language –it is the only language I can even halfway competently speak after all, it just seems to be lacking a little when it comes to describing these charming little habits. Geekdad has an international readership. Perhaps your language has just the word that we can adopt. Let us know in the comments! Measure the geekiness of your family gaming night by checking to see if any of your geeklets have developed any of these habits.

·The action of checking the rules or re-reading a power, despite knowing full well what it does, in the hope of finding your way out of an impossible situation.

·Insisting on reading the entire rulebook out loud, when it would be much easier to just get started.Often best exemplified (or worst, depending on your perspective) when a game is more complicated to explain than it is to actually play. I’m looking at you Yu-Gi-Oh.

·The action of arranging game pieces (Meeples (Carcassonne) are a particular favourite in this regard) in geometric patterns when not being used in the game. Particular Kudos should be given to those who can form 3-D shapes by stacking said pieces.

·The snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory. A particular favorite of mine from many evenings of Heroclix. How often has Doctor Doom been relishing his sweet, sweet victory over the Fantastic Four only to have his victory denied at the last moment. On the gaming table as it is in comics.

·Spending hours sorting all the pieces of a game into individual zip-locked bags so that you can spend more time playing the game than setting it up. Cough, Battlelore, cough.